A generation ago it was commonplace for children to play outside. Amongst other activities, this play often included playing with a ball against a vertical wall surface such as the wall of a garage or of a house, or a garden wall. This allowed children to develop ball control skills and generally increase coordination and fitness. Sadly outdoor recreation amongst children is on the decline, due in part to current more limited land availability and in part to the greater attraction of computer games, which are heavily promoted and advertised and keep children off the streets. One result is that the present generation of young children has much less exposure to the skill development routines of, for example, hitting or kicking a ball against a wall.
GB2466012 discloses a sports training aid that consists of a freestanding sports rebound wall that is designed to be used for ball control sports. The wall is designed to be used where land availability is scarce and comprised a non-planar rebound surface having a variable coefficient of restitution between different parts of the rebound surface. The training aid is formed from a rigid backing structure clad with a non-planar rebound surface. The preferred method of constructing the sports training aid of GB2466012 is a concrete base supporting a tubular metal framework on which rigid backing panels are mounted, the backing panels being covered with a rebound cladding. Although this construction is modular and relatively simple, the use of a concrete base and tubular metal framework results in a construction that is heavy and can not be easily deconstructed and moved to another location when desired. Later sports rebound walls have a lighter modular construction that allows them to be easily constructed and transported and that overcome the problems of GB2466012.
Many previously proposed sports rebound wall, including the sports training aid of GB2466012 comprise force sensors that are located on the surface of, or within, the rebound wall such that when an object impacts the wall the impact is sensed. The sensors may simply sense that an object has impacted the wall. Alternatively, the sensors may sense the position and/or force at which the wall has been impacted. The wall may have any number of force sensors. The force sensors may be evenly spread over the surface of the wall or they may be located in specific target locations. However, little or no technical details of the force sensors are disclosed, instead these walls are intended to use force sensors that were already well known to the person skilled in the art. There was no disclosure of bespoke force sensors designed for sports rebound walls.
These previously proposed sports rebound walls also disclose outputting the force sensors to a suitable computer system to provide feedback to a user or to a third party supervising the use of the training aid. This feedback may be in the form of collected data or may be integrated with other features to provide an interactive experience for a user. They also disclose providing a graphical display, such as an LED or video screen that can be integrated with the force sensors to provide a user with an interactive experience, for example to show information to a user related to the output of the force sensors.
Previously proposed sports rebound walls also disclose the use of a computer or other similar means for controlling the force sensors and any graphical displays. The computer or other similar means may be able to be programmed to provide alternative modes of operation and may be able to monitor and store information and data provided by any interactive feature of the sports training aid. Suitable software, firmware or hardware for controlling the use of the interactive features may be provided. Information stored by a computer or similar means may be used by a user or supervisor to provide feedback about their use of the sports training aid.
In light of the above there is a need for a sports rebound wall comprising a force sensor that is capable of the above functions. The force sensor should be robust and preferably able to detect location, force and timing of any impacts.